The Moving Garden

A week or so ago, my wife and I visited the Brooklyn Museum.  Near the entrance was a forty-five –foot-long granite table with a curving channel running down the middle.  Appearing to grow out of the channel were 100 freshly cut roses.  Upon inspection, you could see that each rose sat in its own water-filled glass inside the channel.  Visitors were invited to take a flower when leaving the museum on condition that they make a detour to their next destination and give the flower to a stranger.  The next day, the flowers taken the day before are replaced, thus continuing the cycle.  Lee Mingwei, a Taiwanese-American artist based in New York, created this participatory installation, “The Moving Garden.”

Intrigued, my wife and I each took a flower.  A young couple, who evidently had not yet read the invitation to participate in the installation, looked scandalized at the sight of this respectable elderly couple who, in their view, had brazenly stolen two flowers.   Undeterred, we walked out of the museum, holding our roses aloft.  Instead of turning to the left on Eastern Parkway, we turned to the right and then left onto Washington Avenue. 

I determined to give my rose to the first woman I saw.  She proved to be a young African American who was walking quickly, seemingly engrossed in her own thoughts.  “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting her cogitations, “may I give this to you?” as I held out the rose towards her.  Her face broke into a delighted smile.  “Thank you,” she said, clearly pleased, as she took the rose.  Seeing her delight delighted me. 

Turning into Lincoln Place, my wife and I saw an adolescent, also an African American, who was propelling himself along the sidewalk on an aluminum scooter.  He won’t be able to take a rose, we thought, since he needs both hands for his scooter, but then he stopped at the entrance to a building.  Just before he reached the door, my wife said “this is a present from the Museum.”  He seemed more bewildered than pleased by my wife’s gift, but he accepted it with a thank you. 

As we continued on our way, I wondered what I could do to repeat my experience with that young woman, an interaction that made me feel so good.  I could add a rose every Friday morning, when I buy flowers in honor of the coming Shabbat, and then give away the rose.  But part of the pleasure of my interaction with the young woman was participating in a communal activity, and that component would be absent.  Still, it's worth thinking about how I could perform other "random acts of kindness" in the future, acts which are likely to give me much pleasure at little cost.

As a footnote to this adventure, let me add that the museum invites those who have taken and given away a flower to record their experiences using Twitter, Flickr, or Instagr.am.  Apparently the museum is unaware that there are antediluvian visitors like me who do not know how to use these devices.


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